Unless I'm reading the wrong pricing page, Duolingo Max seems to cost $29.99/month. In my experience learning Chinese, it costs $15-20 an hour to find a decent teacher online with whom to practice via video call. A few teachers charge less than $10 an hour, but they are very weak. Seems pretty darn reasonable for me, especially since I'm guessing they have at least $10/month in costs just paying for the LLM.

But I can do the same with my free chat gpt account. I understand this is probably much better and targeted at my knowledge though. As I wrote in another comment, so many want me to subscribe for monthly payments, I wouldn't have money for food if I did to everything I am interested in. And I pay for Duolingo Super already